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What is an artist but a workman who is determined that, whatever else happens, his work shall be excellent?

William Morris

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William Morris
Age: 62 †
Born: 1834
Born: March 24
Died: 1896
Died: October 3
Wilcumestowe
William M. Morris
Artist
Else
Happens
Workman
Work
Workmen
Excellent
Determined
Shall
Whatever

More quotes by William Morris

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You may hang your walls with tapestry insread of whitewash or paper or you may cover them with mosaic or have them frescoed by a great painter: all this is not luxury, if it be done for beauty's sake, and not for show: it does not break our golden rule: Have nothing in your houses which you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.
William Morris
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To happy folkAll heaviest words no more of meaning bearThan far-off bells saddening the Summer air.
William Morris
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When Socialism comes, it may be in such a form that we won't like it.
William Morris
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It is the childlike part of us that produces works of the imagination. When we were children time passed so slow with us that we seemed to have time for everything.
William Morris
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O thrush, your song is passing sweet, But never a song that you have sung Is half so sweet as thrushes sang When my dear love and I were young.
William Morris
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Forsooth, brethren, fellowship is heaven and lack of fellowship is hell fellowship is life and lack of fellowship is death and the deeds that ye do upon the earth, it is for fellowship's sake that ye do them.
William Morris
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Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.
William Morris
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If you cannot learn to love real art, at least learn to hate sham art and reject it.
William Morris
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So long as the system of competition in the production and exchange of the means of life goes on, the degradation of the arts will go on and if that system is to last for ever, then art is doomed, and will surely die that is to say, civilization will die.
William Morris
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Large or small, [the garden] should be orderly and rich. It should be well fenced from the outside world. It should by no means imitate either the willfulness or the wildness of nature, but should look like a thing never to be seen except near the house. It should, in fact, look like part of the house.
William Morris
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History has remembered the kings and warriors, because they destroyed art has remembered the people, because they created.
William Morris
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There is no excuse for doing anything which is not strikingly beautiful.
William Morris
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If there is a reason for keeping the wall very quiet, choose a pattern that works all over without pronounced lines...Put very succinctly, architectural effect depends upon a nice balance of horizontal, vertical and oblique. No rules can say how much of each so nothing can really take the place of feeling and good judgement.
William Morris
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I pondered all these things, and how men fight and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name.
William Morris
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I do not want art for a few any more than education for a few, or freedom for a few.
William Morris
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Yea, I have looked, and seen November there The changeless seal of change it seemed to be, Fair death of things that, living once, were fair Bright sign of loneliness too great for me, Strange image of the dread eternity, In whose void patience how can these have part, These outstretched feverish hands, this restless heart?
William Morris
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Give me love and work - these two only.
William Morris
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Love is enough: though the world be a-waning, And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining.
William Morris
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The reward of labour is life. Is that not enough?
William Morris
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Architecture would lead us to all the arts, as it did with earlier mean: but if we despise it and take no note of how we are housed, the other arts will have a hard time of it indeed.
William Morris